People exercise for a variety of reasons including strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, improving athletic abilities, weight loss, or merely for enjoyment or entertainment. Exercise also helps increase self-esteem by improving an individual's perception of their body.
Exercise can generally be grouped into three broad categories based on the overall effect they have on the body. The three groups are flexibility exercises, aerobic exercises, and anaerobic exercises. An individual's training regimen will combine exercises from each group according to the individual's goals. For example, a person training for a marathon will focus more on aerobic exercises than a weight lifter. Regardless of the goal, proper form is critical.
Form is a specific way of performing an exercise to avoid injury and increase strength. The lack of proper form will result in injury and furthermore reduces the desired effectiveness of the exercise. For example, many exercises are designed to target a specific group of muscles. The lack of proper form leads to the body utilizing secondary muscle groups and reducing the desired effectiveness of the exercise.
Proper form is also important in non-strength training exercises. For example, it is easy when doing yoga to make a mistake with even the most basic poses. This can lead to strains, sprains, and chronic aches. Therefore, it is important that a person practice proper form regardless of the type of exercise to minimize injury and maximize the desired effect.